In regard to...

Here's another exciting entry into my "damn, I'm getting old" series.  Last night as I lay in bed, I was thinking about the events of the past day and of things to come.  It WAS the beginning of daylight savings time after all, so I had the ultimate Dad responsibility of resetting all the clocks.  Usually this isn't much to stress over, but I had accidentally "fallen forward" last October (causing all clocks in the house to be ahead by 2 hours).  I couldn't handle another Sunday morning mock-fest from the 10 and under crowd.  I was extra diligent.

After setting all the clocks (and triple checking they were right), I finally went to bed.  Flush from my "Spring forward" victory, my mind was a little overactive.  Images popped into my head of the cheers that would greet me early the next morning.  My adoring children celebrating  my ability NOT to mess up the obvious.  Then my thoughts turned to other topics... random thoughts.  As I closed my eyes and tried to get comfortable, a running dialog was racing through my head... a multi-topic "conversation with myself" if you will.  That's when it happened...

Now before I get to the details, I need to give you a little background regarding my pillow.  For years I've prided myself on having the thinnest, limpest pillow known to man.  Basically, it's a pillow case with a hint of pillow inside... essentially a non-pillow.  I've justified this arrangement to myself and others because... look I can fold and bend and wad my "pillow" into practically any configuration I want.  It adapts to my ever changing pillow needs. 

For decades, this strategy worked.  Call it youth, ignorance... whatever, but I usually woke up refreshed the next morning.  Of course, my pillow looked like a sad, wadded up rag at the head of the bed.  But, it had served me well during the night.  Thank you pillow.  I've left cab fare for you on the dresser. 

come back to bed, baby.

All that has changed over the past few months.  Now... whenever I wake up, I have a headache.  The cause is fairly obvious.  I've found that each morning my head is lying at a severe right angle to the rest of my body.  It's the position you see in movies when someone has jumped to their death from a tall building.  Nothing is exactly where it should be... legs, arms (and in my case) head akimbo.  This awkward position has led to neck pain that continues up to my head.

As much as I hate to, I blame my wisp of a pillow.  It is simply not substantial enough to keep me from playing sleepy-time twister every night.   A change was needed.  Luckily I was able to "borrow" a pillow from a family member.  I'm not sure what this new pillow is made of (it's either filled with space age memory foam or baby goat's teeth), but it does the trick.  It's solid enough to keep my head and neck in check through the night.  The only downside... the pillow is as hard as concrete, or more accurately, wet concrete.  It's extremely firm.   It takes several seconds for my head to actually sink in (and then it's only a fraction of an inch).  That means when I change positions (turn from my back to my side), I have to reacclimate  the pillow to my head. 

And this get's me back to last night...

As I lay in bed thinking a series of meaningless little thoughts... I started to hit upon something worthwhile.  An intelligent concept began to emerge.  A concept that I'd be proud to share with the outside world.  Something I could nonchalantly slip into a normal conversation, just to impress others and show off my big brain.  Yep, I was really on to something.   As my idea grew and I continued to develop my ground breaking hypothesis, I distinctly remember expressing the phrase "in regard to..." as part of my internal dialog.  And yes, the idea I was hatching was so brilliant that I was compelled to use phrases like "in regard to", even in my own head.  Like I said, this conversation was going somewhere deep and meaningful. 

"and that's when I discovered cheeseburgers in a can"

That's when it happened.  Call it fate, call it bad Karma, but at this exact moment I decided to adjust my position in bed.  I needed to turn from my back to my side. 

As the words "in regard to" were forming in my brain, another thought popped in.  This thought said... "hey, remember your new pillow?  You're turning your head now and it's going to be uncomfortable for a second until things settle in.  Just wanted to warn ya".  It was a quick thought.  A split second is all.  The problem was... it was long enough and disruptive enough to completely derail my train of thought.  My cure for cancer or my scheme to end world hunger was gone.  The only thing that remained was the phrase "in regard to". 

I couldn't remember what came before it.  I certainly couldn't remember where the idea was headed.  Sure, I tried for a while to recreate the magic.  I repeated nearly every possible way you can say "in regard to" in your own head.  I hoped that effort would jump start some synapse that would bring me back to my main idea.  It didn't work.  After about 10 minutes of repeating "in regard to" in my head, I realized the moment was lost.

Oh well.  At least I got the clocks right.  Oh, wait... dammit.  I was going to record SNL last night.